Spiiderweb™

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -- Thomas Mann

If so, I must be a writer.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Military contractors are hard to fire

Was gonna show Army equipment,but had to show this picture instead.

The nice thing about having a blog is you can post any stories, pictures, shit you want to. I chose the compassionate picture above. I've not found the right time to post it.

Really, this post is about the emphasized parts which are pure bullshit. There must be thousands of Iraqi's capable of cleaning the fucking dirt off equipment, but I'd guess ITT is too goddamn cheap to hire them. Cuts into profits, don't ya know.

Consider the 3 brothers killed in the bird market blast. They were trying to support their family by buying and selling birds. Cleaning equipment would have probably paid better, been safer and they'd be alive today.

ITT Federal Services International, a defense contractor hired to maintain battle gear for U.S. troops in Iraq, repeatedly failed to do the job right.

Combat vehicles ITT declared as repaired and ready for action flunked inspections and had to be fixed again. Equipment to be sanitized for return to the United States was found caked with dirt. And ITT's computer database for tracking the work was rife with errors.

Formal "letters of concern" [oh, so fucking scary!] were sent to the contractor. Still, the Army didn't fire ITT. Instead, it gave the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company more work to do. Since October 2004, ITT has been paid $638 million through the Global Maintenance and Supply Services contract.

The Army's ongoing arrangement with ITT, detailed in an audit from the Government Accountability Office, shows how captive the military has become to the private sector for overseas support. Even when contractors don't measure up, dismissing them may not be an option because of the heavy pace of operations.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., co-author of legislation creating a special commission to examine wartime contracting, said poor-performing contractors are more likely to get bonuses than to be penalized.

"It has just been a mess," McCaskill, a former state auditor, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's bad enough how much this war is costing. But it's heartbreaking the amount of money that has just gone up in smoke."

In ITT's case, there were too few soldiers to handle the maintenance duties and no other contractors ready to step in quickly, according to Redding Hobby, the Army Sustainment Command's executive director for field support operations.

Now tell me, when work has to be re-done or isn't done at all, how the hell does that facilitate the "heavy pace of operations"?

And bonuses and more work for fucking up? I gotta get into contracting. I can fuck up with the best of 'em.

Snoop Dogg torn between Obama, Clinton

Well that pretty much cuts it for me. If Snoop ain't committing, neither am I.

I'll have to watch this closely.

Watch Snoop Dogg talk politics. (CNN) — Days before 22 states are set to hold Democratic primary contests, it appears at least one crucial endorsement is still up for grabs: Rapper Snoop Dogg's. The rapper and music producer told CNN's Larry King he is torn between both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's historic candidacies.

Must read IMHO

As always, Christopher has done good. He has the latest on Lebanon, Hezbollah, Amal.

Basically he believes those who think Hezbollah wants to take over the government are incorrect and he has good arguments.

Anyone paying any attention to al-wada (the situation) in Lebanon knows things ain’t good. The weather is affecting everything, from food deliveries to electricity. Skiing’s good up in Faraya, I hear, though.

Last weekend’s unrest was extremely unsettling. Seven people were killed and now Hezbollah and Amal are calling for revenge against the Army. March 8 — the Hezbollah-led opposition — is looking more and more intransigent, and unwilling to come to any solution other than a complete caving of the government to their demands: veto power in the cabinet, picking the president and a lock-in to the Syrian orbit.

Study: UN Global Warming Forecast Violates Accepted Principles

Not much ice there now is there?Can you see the poor polar bears?(click for larger image)

According to The National Center for Policy Analysis' own website they are a pretty benign group out to solve your problems. Well, they're a think tank and "nonprofit", "nonpartisan" are always the claim of think tanks.

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983.

Ah, also from their website we find this. You can check out the board of directors but it ain't pretty

The NCPA's goal is to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.

This is the story.

Predictions of melting ice caps, catastrophic sea level rise and severe floods and droughts are the result of a United Nation's report that violates nearly half of accepted forecasting principles, according to a new study published by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). Consequently, the UN report is an unreliable tool for determining future public policy.

Hmmm. So let's see what we have. On the one hand we have the UN which really is trying to help you and everyone else around the world.

On the other hand we have a bunch of fucking wealthy guys who run various funds and companies (including oil, of course) who have a vested interest in keeping climate change legislation from ever becoming law.

Wall Street donates millions to top presidential candidates

Sorry, $2.5 million. Best I could do.Just picture the stack twice as large.

Now if these people are donating to the candidates, why would government feel the need to leave them unregulated? Never mind. Its right there &mdash $5 million.

My guess is $5 million buys a lot of influence.

Employees of Wall Street investment banks, whose role in the unregulated sub-prime mortgage market helped stall the U.S. economy, have donated more than $5 million to the top four Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

Scientists Created Sperm from Bone Marrow of a Woman: Man No Longer Needed for Reproduction

Magritte Rene - The Son of Man 1964

The University of Newcastle team that has achieved the feat is now applying for permission to turn the bone marrow of a woman into sperm which, if successful, would make the method more practical than with embryonic cells.

It raises the possibility of lesbian couples one day having children who share both their genes as sperm created from the bone marrow of one woman could be used to fertilise an egg from her partner.

Failure to impeach Bush will haunt Democrats and the country

Weldon Berger makes an excellent case for impeachment. Its light on specifics, but he was going after consequences, repercussions.

I have to disagree with the emphasized statement. Coherent summaries are all over the place. That link is not only coherent, its almost exhaustive in its particulars. Its also written by a professor of law and could be presented to Congress "as is". He's done all the hard work.

Nearly a decade of investigations, a lurid [I'd say titillating, but...] final report and a concerted campaign for impeachment left Bill Clinton among the more popular American presidents, with the majority of Americans unconvinced of any need to impeach or remove him from office. Nearly a decade of no investigations, with no coherent summary of misdeeds and no institutional effort to impeach, has left George Bush among the most unpopular of all presidents with a large minority, possibly a plurality, of Americans believing he deserves impeachment.

Clinton was impeached for personal reasons, on both sides of the equation: it was his personal behavior that provided whatever basis for the charges existed, and the desire to impeach him was intensely personal as well. However much impeachment proponents dislike Bush and Cheney—often considerably—the rationale for impeaching them is their official behavior. Consequently, any indictment of the two, whether for repeatedly breaking the law with respect to warrantless surveillance, or violating the Geneva conventions, or politicizing the Department of Justice or any of a number of other crimes, would constitute an indictment of their Congressional enablers as well.

I do, however, believe someone needs to introduce Weldon Berger to The Google™*.

That's a joke, folks.

* A reference to Dim Son's remark to the effect he knows computers and uses The Google™. As you know, no one with any knowledge of search engines would call it The Google™. Its just those confusing internets tubes.

GOP Group Reports Possible Fraud to FBI

NOTE: I'm assuming the suspect is a Republican because they only hire their own.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced Friday it has alerted the FBI of possible fraud in its bookkeeping.

In a statement, NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said:

"As part of our ongoing efforts to institute and strengthen financial controls at the National Republican Congressional Committee, we learned earlier this week of irregularities in our financial audit process. Since these irregularities may include fraud, we have notified the appropriate law enforcement authorities. We are aggressively and thoroughly investigating the matter and, while we determine the details, we have terminated our relationship with a former employee who was engaged as an outside vendor."

Domestic Spying Program Could Aid Terrorists, Experts Say

File under unintended consequences.

Although the Bush administration calls it a vital weapon against terrorism, its domestic wiretapping effort could become a devastating tool for terrorists if hacked or penetrated from inside, according to a new article by a group of America's top computer security experts.

The administration has said little about the program except to defend it against charges it amounts to illegal spying on U.S. citizens. When news of the program broke in 2006, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the program a "limited" effort "targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States."

But documents submitted in an ongoing court case indicate the program involves data centers at major telecommunications hubs that siphon off and analyze billions of bytes of Americans' emails, phone calls and other data.

By diverting the flow of so much domestic data into a few massive pools, the administration may have "[built] for its opponents something that would be too expensive for them to build for themselves," say the authors: "a system that lets them see the U.S.'s intelligence interests...[and] that might be turned" to exploit conversations and information useful for plotting an attack on the United States.

Cat blogging

U.S. court won't review Guantanamo evidence ruling

Perhaps all the remaining detainees in Gitmo are terrorists, but its highly unlikely. Just give them the right to defend themselves. And stop with the "indefinite imprisonments".

The government constantly bitches about other countries who imprison people indefinitely, deny them access to courts, legal counsel, habeas corpus, specific charges, access to evidence against them. What's the difference? Just because they're called "enemy combatants" instead of "enemies of the state"? Just asking.

The U.S. government on Friday lost a court bid to prevent terrorism detainees gaining access to all readily available documents about them as they challenge their indefinite imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.

Friday, February 01, 2008

99 dead in Baghdad pet market blasts

At least 99 [my update -ed] people were killed today in two bombings, one in a bird market and the other in a pet market bombing. My first thought when I heard was children. The image of a father relenting to a young son's pleas for a puppy, a bird or a cat ran through my head. I imagine that some child thought they were finally getting a pet they wanted and instead were faced with the reality of Iraq, blood [emphasis mine].

She has video, but warns its gruesome.

Interestingly enough, almost every other news source I've read reported 14 people were killed by a blast in one pet market in Baghdad.

My guess is most news sources don't have actual reporters in Iraq, but that's just a supposition. So they report the information they get.

At least 43 people were killed today when bombs tore through two separate pet markets in Baghdad.

Yeah, I went with fucking birds in a Baghdad pet market &mdash pre-blast. I'm not nuts about showing mutilated, bloody bodies and the dead.

UK sending 'half-trained' troops to Afghanistan, says report

This should give aid and comfort to the families and friends of these troops.

Britain is proposing to send up to 1,000 new army recruits to Afghanistan without full combat training due to a massive shortage in manpower, a leading UK daily reported Thursday.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn the US is doing the same thing. They don't need no "full training". This is your uniform. This is your rifle. That is your troop plane. Write when you get a chance and keep your head down.

Why not? The US has sent mentally injured (PTSD) back in there. They need bodies. All the bodies they can get their hands on and they'll take any they can find or recruit.

Pakistan air strike bodies buried, Qaeda death not confirmed: army

SchultzHogan's HeroesTV show

Now this is shock and awe. At least they seem to be honest about it now. Mistakes should be corrected.

But why do they immediately make claims about al-Qaeda leaders killed if they don't know for sure? Is it a chain of command problem? And, if so, how far up the chain does it go before someone say, "Ya, know. We aren't sure Abu Laith al-Libi was in there or not".

The bodies from a missile strike that killed several militants have been buried and it was impossible to confirm or refute if a top Al-Qaeda operative was among them, the army said Friday.

An Islamist website reported Thursday that Al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in Pakistan, and a Western official said there were "very strong indications" that he had been slain.

The report came after a suspected US missile raid in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan on Monday night which security officials said had killed seven Arab militants and six Central Asians.

"Our position is that who fired, who ordered, who removed the bodies etc is not known to us," chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

"We cannot negate nor confirm because the moment it happened, they removed the bodies and buried them. So, how would anybody confirm who got killed?" Abbas added, without elaborating on who buried the bodies.

...

Pakistani forces never officially confirm US strikes on their territory, saying foreign forces are not permitted to operate on Pakistani soil because it would infringe national sovereignty.

I love that last paragraph. ...foreign forces are not permitted to operate on Pakistani soil because it would infringe national sovereignty. So Pakistan just looks the other way. "I know nothing &mdash Schultz"

Something is fishy about this, but we'll never know. One good thing is the US military wasn't making the claim.

Walking with baby

FLASHBACK: Cooling Down Begins At Svalbard Global Seed Vault

I may be missing the big picture, here comes the first but... (there will be two) I've not seen where anyone else has brought this up.

Biodiversity is all well and good and I'm glad to see something is being done to ensure it. Once species are gone, game over.

From everything I've read, this experiment is going quite well. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is being prepared and seeds are being gathered from around the world, 7,000 unique seed samples from Africa alone are en route.

It appears very careful planning went into this huge, expensive program

Refrigeration units began pumping chilly air deep into an Arctic mountain cavern today, launching the innovative and critical "cooling down" phase of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in advance of its official opening early next year as a fail-safe repository of the world's vital food crops. Svalbard is now three days into the three-month "Polar Night" period when there is 24 hours of complete darkness. Engineers working for the government of Norway, which is building the facility on the Svalbard archipelago, launched the cooling operation that, over the next two months, will bring the temperature of the sandstone rock surrounding the seed vault from its current -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit), to -18 degrees Celsius (about 0 degrees Fahrenheit). The vault is to be officially opened 26 February 2007. "It's very satisfying to see the vault evolve from a bold concept to an impressive facility that has everything we need to protect crop biodiversity," said Mr. Terje Riis-Johansen, Norway's Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Here comets the second but...what happens when climate change has wiped out much of the food stocks, people, livestock are starving and its time to bring out those seeds?

Do you expect riots? Do you think the scientists have considered what they'll do then? Do you think they know when is the right time to bring them out? If they bring them out too early, will they just die off?

Have they planned for the back side of this Svalbard Global Seed Vault cycle? Just asking.

Threats from everywhere in 'cyber storm'

Perhaps its just me but it doesn't sound like this went exactly as planned.

TESTING OUR DEFENSES: In the middle of the biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game to test the nation's hacker defenses, someone quietly targeted the very computers used to conduct the exercise.

THE CULPRIT [sic]? The players themselves, the same government and corporate experts responsible for detecting and fending off attacks against vital computer systems, according to files obtained by The Associated Press.

REALITY GAME: The $3 million war game simulated what the U.S. describes as plausible attacks against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalization hackers.

Police State: Push for new UK stop and search laws

If this goes into law, will the US be far behind? Not if the Bush administration is still in office.

Its a fucking race to the bottom. Any bets on who'll win?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is planning to give police the power to stop and search people without giving a reason, sources have told the BBC. It comes as Tory leader David Cameron urged greater use of stop and search to combat gun and knife crime. The two leaders clashed earlier in the Commons with Mr Cameron urging Mr Brown to scrap forms officers must fill in when they stop someone.

They're missing the obvious solution. Profile everyone and throw the miscreants in prison before they can do the crime.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Bush ignores Afghan school violence

The US economy is fine. Afghanistan is secure. Iraq is peaceful. The Taleban is defeated. Mission Accomplished.

You still believe this lying asshole?

Are you in the market to buy a bridge? I have a great one.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush called Afghanistan a young democracy where children go to school and Afghans are hopeful. But he didn't mention the violence that has killed 147 students and teachers, and closed 590.

Bush's rosy outlook for a country that once hosted al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden didn't contain any falsehoods. New roads and hospitals are being built, just as he told the nation Monday night.

Boys and girls are going to school in record numbers. Some 5.8 million students, including 2 million girls, are now in class, compared with less than a million under the Taliban.

But some here might say Bush glossed over the bad news. Last year saw a record level of violence, and military leaders and analysts expect the suicide bombings, clashes and kidnappings to increase in 2008.

"The security is going from bad to worse, especially in the south and the east," said Abdul Kaiyoom, 47, who works for Afghanistan's Education Ministry. "International forces have very modern equipment, but the Taliban have a heavy influence in the outlying areas, and they are taking territory from the government."

Bush said the sending of an additional 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan — a decision made just this month — would help continue the country's successes. But in reality, it came only after U.S. officials couldn't persuade other NATO countries to send more soldiers to bolster the 28,000 U.S. forces already there.

Australia to apologize to Aborigines

Its about fucking time. Now how about the US?

Reparations aren't necessary, but a simple "We're sorry" will do. Spoken as a part (1/8th) American Native.

Australia will issue its first formal apology to the country's indigenous people on Feb. 13, a senior minister said Wednesday, a step that could ease tensions with a minority once subjected to policies that included removal of mixed-blood children from families on the premise that their race was doomed.

Stimulate This

I've run into this before, but failed to post about it.Food stamps are the best stimulus available, but Bush and his cronies don't need them. They need tax credits because they make so much fucking money.

You serfs can only drool.

BTW, I had a business in which I sold food, among other things, and I never saw any food stamp other than the "1". Even when poor, people are treated as poor. Did that make any sense?

Monday, January 28, 2008

Complete Free Press Newswire

I really hope this is part of a new trend.

In trying to turn BBC into an open cultural and creative resource, it made much of its material available online to UK citizens via Creative Archive licensing. Now other European public broadcasters are inspired to do the same.

Bringing the War Home: America's Sick Comedy

Unlike me no comment required.

According to a recent New York Times article about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, more than 120 people have been killed--in America, since 2001--by members of the United States Armed Forces. Bringing the war home after returning from serving their country in Afghanistan and Iraq, a small number of soldiers, sailors, and Marines have wasted their own young lives, as well as the lives of other Americans. Some of them became killers in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there are those who had to earn the label 'killer'when they looked at their friends, neighbors, and family in America and saw the enemy. And, as happens on foreign battlefields, innocents became victims of friendly fire.

Music

If you love and appreciate music, don't read this post because I'm gonna fuck it up for you.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

If you have decent speakers you'll know what I'm saying.

There are many ways to record music, but the three most common ways are:

1. Corporate, sanitized, manufatured.

2. Live.

3. Live in studio.

Corporate, sanitized, manufactured music involves putting the drums behind a glass screen. Many of the tracks are recorded at different times and even different days. It is obvious. You can listen carefully and realize the singer and the musicians are not in the room at the same time.

Live is better, but includes crowd noise. Sometimes its a plus, but often a negative.

Now we come to live in a studio. You can tell all performers are in the same room. Its just like listening to a live performance and its far superior to the other forms.

I wanted to supply you with examples, but can't.

Of the third way to record, try to find Steve Earle's Snake Oil. Hell, any track on Copperhead Road will do.

Defunct Spy Satellite Falling From Orbit (CAW)

A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.

Yeah, my bad.

Not totally bad like Dirty Harry. Obviously Lindsey has had problems for some time. Hence her posing with Rush. I am surprised he isn't staring at her chest.

Unusual for me, but Jesus H Christ in a black dress she looks so fucking old in that picture.

Another Neocon Attempt to Frame Iran Falls Apart

I'm coming to the inevitable conclusion the real conspiracy theorists wear not tinfoil hats, but the cloaks of neoconservatives.

Although nukes and Iraq have been the main focus of the Bush Administration's pressure campaign against Iran, US officials also seek to tar Iran as the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. And Team Bush's latest tactic is to play up a thirteen-year-old accusation that Iran was responsible for the notorious Buenos Aires bombing that destroyed the city's Jewish Community Center, known as AMIA, killing eighty-six and injuring 300, in 1994. Unnamed senior Administration officials told the Wall Street Journal January 15 that the bombing in Argentina "serves as a model for how Tehran has used its overseas embassies and relationship with foreign militant groups, in particular Hezbollah, to strike at its enemies."

This propaganda campaign depends heavily on a decision last November by the General Assembly of Interpol, which voted to put five former Iranian officials and a Hezbollah leader on the international police organization's "red list" for allegedly having planned the July 1994 bombing. But the Wall Street Journal reports that it was pressure from the Bush Administration, along with Israeli and Argentine diplomats, that secured the Interpol vote. In fact, the Bush Administration's manipulation of the Argentine bombing case is perfectly in line with its long practice of using distorting and manufactured evidence to build a case against its geopolitical enemies.

After spending several months interviewing officials at the US Embassy in Buenos Aires familiar with the Argentine investigation, the head of the FBI team that assisted it and the most knowledgeable independent Argentine investigator of the case, I found that no real evidence has ever been found to implicate Iran in the bombing. Based on these interviews and the documentary record of the investigation, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the case against Iran over the AMIA bombing has been driven from the beginning by US enmity toward Iran, not by a desire to find the real perpetrators.

Tiny rant. Why is neoconservative not in Microsoft's dictionary? Arghhh!

About Me

Spent many years programming, mostly mainframes. Been in business for myself, sky dived, scuba dived, practiced karate (until the broken ribs & finger), driven a sprint car (unreal). Want the US to be great again and worry it's impossible. I consider myself a moderate because I believe most Americans don't approve of torture, do want everyone to have health care, a pension and/or a job, privacy, freedom and NO WAR. Not too radical. I use profanity like a sailor so you should leave if you are sensitive.

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